Omeo - Swifts Creek

The drive to Swifts Creek and Omeo is STUNNING!!!! It truly deserves the capitals. You drive along the curve of the Tambo River for much of the way and it is beautiful. The Tambo River isn't very deep, or isn't where we drove, but it is so picturesque. I would have loved to stop and take photos but there just weren't any safe places to stop and get the car and van off the road. Around every bend I was saying “ooh, look at that” and “oh isn't that beautiful!”

Omeo is a beautiful little town! It truly is lovely. We only stayed 2 days as the price at the caravan park was ridiculous (we payed less than half price at Swifts Creek which is half an hour down the road!). We thoroughly enjoyed the town as all of the trees were beginning to change colour and it is just a small, quaint little town that was nice to spend time in. We found a very cool cuckoo clock shop – completely unexpected – but definitely worth a visit. The lady who ran it was in her 80's. She used to also run the information centre so she was a wealth of knowledge of the area too.

The Omeo Caravan Park is truly beautiful (but way over priced)

We drove up to Mt Hotham, touring Dinner Plain (yes, it really is a place) on the way. I really liked the first 5 or so minutes at Dinner Plain as all of the houses are very different and unique to the typical Australian house, but after a little drive they all had a certain sameness to them. Very little was open seeing it is off season but I am glad we had a look (and I got some ideas of how I'd like my house to look if we ever built again). It was good to see Mt Hotham and to imagine it covered in snow in winter but to be honest, I enjoyed my walks at Charlotte Pass a lot more as I love the more alpine trees and snow grass environment. Mt Hotham was much more rugged and less vegetated.

The houses of Dinner Plain 

 View from Mt Hotham

Hiking along Razorneck Ridge

After 2 days at Omeo we drove back to Swifts Creek. This has a great little camp ground just across the Tambo River from the town and one of the nicest bakeries I have come across. The bakery was interesting as they didn't have lots of food options but the bread was delicious and they had a constantly changing array of tasty treats. My guess is they baked a batch of a couple of different treats – like cherry ripe slice, donuts, vanilla slice etc – then the next day they would bake some different goodies – like cupcakes, wagon wheels and other yummy things. So you never knew what goody you would find when you went to buy "just a loaf of bread". We spent quite a bit of money at the bakery but hey, it's good to support the local towns, especially when the camping and the bakery prices were so reasonable :)

We spent the week at Swifts Creek where Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari joined us. We all had a great time together. The kids spent hours each day playing in the creek and making up all sorts of games.

One of the best parts of our stay here was Greg went gold panning one day.... and found gold.... and the gold bug was caught.!!! So the next day we all headed out to explore and gold pan Swifts Creek. More gold was found. Hours were spent playing, I mean panning, in the dirt for gold..... fun for all of the kids (big and little alike), although the little one's lost interest much quicker than Greg did :) We certainly wouldn't make our fortune... more like 50 cents maybe.... but still, we found gold!

We also managed to fit us all in our caravan for a roast lamb dinner one night.... we were very impressed to get 8 people in round the table of such a small space, although as caravans go ours isn't small. And we had a very yummy roast lamb dinner.

The other good part of Swifts Creek.......Any guesses? Hot showers with great water pressure! My “must haves” in life have been reduced to being warm (after freezing at Jindabyne) and a hot shower with good water pressure.

Tostaree Cottages Far Stay, Tostaree

I can definitely recommend this as a great place to stay. It is a working sheep and cattle farm but you are welcome to roam through all of the paddocks. The owners, Greg and Vicky, are lovely people who are happy for a chat and full of local knowledge. We had such a great time here that we ended up staying longer than we intended. We got to set up our caravan in a very pretty spot, on beautiful thick green grass, camped in a paddock next to the pregnant sheep. While we were there a baby lamb was born and the mum and bub got moved into the paddock next to us. Every time the lamb bleated Rory would jump up and say “what's happening?” which was so cute but also got a bit tedious after a while. Vicky gave us a tour of their 300 acres in a farm buggy. Rory sat on my lap in the front while Greg and Tilda stood in the back holding onto the roll bar. Our kids absolutely loved every minute of it.... the ride, the farm stay, the animals and the excitement of waiting to see if any more sheep lambed as it was the beginning of lambing season. I think both our kids could happily settle into the farm life, as you could see them blossom while there. There were loads of beaming smiles from them both. (But Tilda also misses home and her friends so if we could have a farm of a couple of hundred acres at home she'd be thoroughly content and happy I think).

 The paddock of pregnant ewes

 Vegemite the pony

 Rory was a bit unsure

 The beautiful area we camped in

This bull was huge!

We did a quick trip to Lakes Entrance one day. It was pouring rain and we desperately needed to wash clothes so we went there to the laundromat. Through the heavy rain it looked like a nice place to visit and explore, and we did explore some shops while our clothes were washing and drying. It would have been nice to spend a day or two there without rain but it just didn't fit in to our plans.

We also rode the Rail Trail (http://www.eastgippslandrailtrail.com.au/ ). This looks like a great idea and would make a fun holiday, if you like bike riding or horse riding. The old railway line is being restored into a bike and horse riding and walking trail. We rode along a small section of it adjacent to the farm and rode down to an old wooden railway bridge. It is amazing to look at how things “used to be done” and to see the effort and intelligence that had to go in to the construction of the bridge, not to mention the size of the trees they used to make the pylons!

On the way to Tostaree we spent one night free camping on the side of the Snowy River just out of Orbost. We found an AWESOME hamburger place at Orbost... so good we ate there 2 days in a row (so good I have forgotten the name of it! Oops!). It was interesting for Tilda to see the Snowy River closer to the mouth. We were surrounded by dairy farms and the River had also passed through towns between Charlotte Pass and Orbost so the River was quite brown and slightly brackish. We drove to Marlo so that we could see where the Snowy River reaches the sea. I think that was a good thing to see it near the start of it in the mountains and then where the river meets the sea.

 Where the Snowy River meets the sea

The "other end" of the Snowy River

Crossing the NSW - Victorian Border (Merimbula - Genoa)

As we are doing Distance Ed through Sydney, and Tilda was still schooling, we didn't realise until quite late that Victorian schools were on holidays and accommodation was at a premium. We left Jindabyne without a real plan of where to stay, just knowing we were still heading south. When we got to Bega we started seriously looking into where to stay and found a caravan park at Merimbula that had vacancies and was reasonably priced. We set up there as our base for a couple of days.

We did a day trip to Bega to check out the Heritage Centre. It was OK, not great. Fortunately it was free. I remember going to the Bega Cheese Factory as a child and having a proper tour of the factory. You can't do anything of the sort now. The Information/Heritage Centre has a display of vintage equipment upstairs but it doesn't even clearly explain how cheese is made, or if it did, it certainly wasn't clear as I didn't find any information about it. 

That same day we also drove to Tathra to check out the historic wharf and, primarily, to meet up with our “new friends” (as Rory calls them). The wharf was interesting in that everywhere you looked there were big warning signs telling you what you couldn't do, but no signs saying why the wharf was important. Just as we were leaving I found a small bronze plaque explaining why the wharf was important... and in case you are wondering, or visit there and miss the fairly obscure sign, it is important because it is an example of the only open sea timber wharf surviving from the coastal steamer era. There are timber cattle races still on the shore-ward side, which is interesting to see.

There was a very cool playground at the foreshore at Tathra where we spent a couple of hours catching up with our friends. As always, the kids played so well together. We truly have been fortunate to meet a family travelling roughly the same way and pace as us, with all of us getting on very well together.

We also visited the Killer Whale Museum at Eden. This was quite interesting to visit. There were whale bones that were bigger than Rory! I know that whales are big but seeing the bones up close, and in relation to Rory, gave me a new perspective.

 Above Tilda's head are the jaw bones of a Blue Whale

 Rory standing next to some bones from the Humpback Whale

We moved on to stay a couple of days at Genoa. This is a great free camp just over the Victorian border. We could have fires so we got to fire up the OzPig, which was good as we could cook on it and we also made campfire cones. If you haven't enjoyed these awesome containers of goodness, I suggest you try it some time. You fill up a waffle cone with chocolate, lollies and other goodies that you want to include (if you google it you will see that people put fruit pieces and all sorts of things in them), wrap it in foil and cook on the fire coals until it is all melted and gooey. You need to be careful not to burn the cones but gosh they are good! I especially like them with caramels in the middle as they melt so deliciously! The Genoa River is lovely just there. It was very shallow in most places with lots of sand banks throughout. The kids had a great time playing there and we spent quite a few hours enjoying the river. The area was full of Bell Birds and they chimed almost constantly. I heard some campers complaining that they were too noisy! Seriously!

We travelled to Mallacoota for a day trip but given that it was Easter and part of the school holidays, the place was a zoo! The tourists (and yes, I know we are tourists but not like these ones) seemed to leave their brains at home and walked and drove in front of the car. It looked like it would be a lovely place to explore the water and surrounds but we really didn't get a good sense of it and it actually made us want to stay away. We did go to the headland and got to see a pod of dolphins swimming and playing around not too far offshore, and even though we can see them quite often at Port Stephens, I still love seeing them playing in the ocean. 

Jindabyne

It is hard to believe we had only been on the road for a month when we got to Jindabyne. It seems a lot longer than that, but still feels like a holiday and not like it is our new (temporary) lifestyle. Jindabyne was wonderful for many reasons.

Firstly, it seems kind of funny to travel a couple of hundred kilometres to camp in the same town as your next door neighbours, but that's what happened. It was lovely to see Steve and Pauline again after leaving home for a year. They truly are wonderful neighbours, just like family.

Fun at Lake Jindabyne

Secondly, the lovely family we met at Canberra came a day after us and camped near us. These guys – Michael, Melissa, Willow and Sakari – are great people to spend time with. The kids all play so well together and it is great to have adults that you click with and can easily hang out with.

Thirdly, and my favourite part, the alpine environment. I love, love, love the alpine ecosystem. I could spend all day roaming the snow grass and admiring the snow gums. From the tiny little flowers, to the plants with spiral looking leaves, to mountain streams and pools and everything in between. I could talk and talk and talk about it forever, but I know everyone would get bored and besides, I'd rather be out there enjoying it. So instead, I'll inundate this blog post with photos instead :) And if you're wondering why I don't live there if I love it so much..... I hate the cold, although after our week there I could be tempted to move. It was very cold while we were there, even though it was February. A couple of nights got down to 1-2 degrees and day times had tops of around 12 degrees up in the mountains. Jindabyne itself was slightly warmer during they day - tops of around 17.

Some beautiful finds between Perisher and Charlotte Pass

One day we went for a drive up to Charlotte Pass but it was very overcast and misty so the views weren't great. I don't think we even managed to see Mt Kosciuszko that day.

That's the Snowy River hidden by the mist and what you cant see is My Kosciuszko in the background

The next day we went to Thredbo and got all day chair lift passes. At first I wondered what we had done when we got to the top of the chair lift and couldn't see anything for the mist. I was pretty disappointed and wished we had waited another day, but the weather began to clear up.

From the top of the chair lift it is a 2km walk to the Mt Kosciuszko lookout and 6.4km to the top of Mt Kosciuszko. We walked a little way but then made the (wise) decision that neither Rory nor Tilda would be able to do the hike comfortably as it is a long, steady climb. Greg stayed with the kids while I did the 2km hike to the lookout. I think this was the first time since we left home that I did something by myself and I enjoyed it, but also felt rushed and guilty knowing that the kids were probably bored and feeling like I was taking too long. The chair lift ride took approx 15 minutes one way, and we did 3 trips in one go, so we were on it for 45 minutes straight one time. It was too cold to do that... I certainly don't recommend it in the cold! Rory sucked the drop bar and I thought he might get his tongue stuck like in the Dumb and Dumber movie.

Rory's Dumb and Dumber moment (fortunately it wasn't that cold)

We drove up to Charlotte Pass a second time with our neighbour Steve and our new friends. The weather was so much better – the sun was shining and the sky was clear. We hiked down to the Snowy River and played around there for a while. There were rocks to cross it and most of us tasted the fresh water, apart from Matilda. I thoroughly enjoyed this day. Hiking around the alpine environment, especially when it is clear and sunny (even if it was only 12 degrees), is one of my all time favourite things.

Tilda is pointing to Mt Kosciuszko (at Charlotte Pass)

Stunning Snow Gums

On the banks of the Snowy River

Our time in Jindabyne has definitely been a high point of the trip so far.